


Legs

by plotweaver



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bethyl Secret Santa, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plotweaver/pseuds/plotweaver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth leaves the driver's seat too far forward, and it gets Daryl thinking about their height difference. Set at the end of Season 3/beginning of Season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legs

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Bethyl Secret Santa gift for bettyoberlin! Check out her blog on tumblr. And a Merry Bethylmas to you, betty! Hope you like this!

“The hell…?” 

Daryl had seen the car make it to the clearing thirty seconds ago. It kicked up enough dust to choke the walkers already there, but she was driving it gentle enough that it wasn’t making enough noise to draw in any new ones.

Still, that was no fucking excuse. He’d been looking for the car, and it going missing from behind a barbed wire fence, much less in the middle of the apocalypse was alarming. So when the green Hyundai finally showed up, careening toward their front gate, he took off running.

Carl was already at the entrance, slightly struggling to tug open the gate. Daryl reached over his head and easily yanked open the rusted doors, pushing a few lingering zombies into the nearby spikes. The car glided past, but not before he caught the flash of a bright, blonde ponytail. The cheerful color, so at odds with his current mood, only irritated him further. Beth Greene, slim, easily breakable Beth, the surrogate mom to Lil’ Asskicker, stealing cars and riding out into the hell the world had become. It was just plain dumb. And dumb got you killed.

“Tell Hershel that we found the car,” he said to Carl before stalking up the hill to the prison.

He was sweating by the time he caught up to where she parked the car. His crossbow beat rapidly against his back with every stride. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

The little smile on her face hardened, and he halted. For a second. 

“I said-“

“I was getting more formula for Judy,” she said. Her chin tilted upward and her eyes bore into his, unblinking, as if daring him to question her.

“We have plenty-“

“Rats have gotten into the pantry. Found ‘em in the formula, rolling around in the powder.”

“You shoulda told the Council. We’d have taken care of it.”

“And put it to a vote that would take another day? A baby shouldn’t go that long without food. Judy was practically screaming. We’ve gone on runs to this town dozens of times-“

“You’ve not gone alone. Coulda been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” Her chin raised some more.

His eyes traveled over her. Wisps of hair had pulled free of her braid, spiraling out from her face like a crazed halo. Her lips had gone white from the pressure of pushing them together into a tight line. Her chest was puffed out, holding in a breath that he wasn’t sure that even she was aware that she was holding.

She looked something fierce, and Daryl was instantly reminded of that one summer in South Georgia when Merle convinced him to camp all summer since they couldn’t afford the motel rates anymore. He knew it was a big lie. Merle had been stashing money for weeks. Some of it for booze, but most of it was to wave around in bars. Intimidate the men, entice the women, instigate fights. But that was beside the point. Because one afternoon, while Merle was out waving money to impress a guy with a job opportunity, Daryl hunted his way into bear territory. 

He saw the cubs before he saw the mom. The two little ones were wrestling with each other, one biting the other’s ear. The mom lazily intervened every now and again, but otherwise didn’t move.

Daryl took a step forward, intrigued, and felt a twig give way beneath his boots. 

The mom’s head snapped in his direction. Her small eyes bored into his. She did not move, didn’t even bare her teeth or open her mouth to make a sound. But it was enough. Her deathly gaze said it all. 

_Make one more move, motherfucker. Just try coming between me and these cubs. See what happens._

He buzzed back to reality, where Beth’s eyes, so different from the bear’s in appearance, held the exact same message.

“Get Lil’ Asskicker her food. We’ll talk later.”

He didn’t realize he had been standing so close until the tail of her braid flicked him on the chin as she turned and walked away with the cans of powdered formula.

He huffed and climbed into the car. Or, rather, he attempted to.

The seat was so far jammed forward that once Daryl crammed his legs in, his knees nearly hit the steering wheel. Clumsily, he found the catch on the bottom of the seat and roughly kicked back until his legs could stretch comfortably toward the pedals.

Funny. He didn’t remember Beth being that much shorter than him. Not that he was measuring, or anything. She’d unexpectedly hugged him a few times. Quick, firm embraces for bringing back a rather impressive hunt or as thanks for holding Lil’ Asskicker while she prepared the next bottle or because it was a Sunday. Her head never made it above his shoulders, even in her worn boots. The delicate wisps of her hair barely tickled his jawline. But he never thought much of it. If anything, he thought it was because she always seemed to be pulling away the second she started to hug him.

He’d never seen how long or short her legs were, because he never let his eyes roam over her too long. Out of basic respect, of course. But, mostly, he didn’t want to risk getting caught. Beth was quiet, but he’d noticed that her eyes caught everything. And if she saw something she didn’t think was right, she’d say something. He didn’t want to have to explain his way outta why he was stealing long glances when she called him out on it. So he’d kept his eyes toward the ground when she was in the room, no matter how hard he felt them pull in their sockets toward her.

He’d seen glimpses though: Her thighs in light colored jeans while he pretended to be sleeping. She had come to berate him for stealing one of their horses back on the farm. He’d heard her voice in the hall and wasn’t in the mood for another stranger to yell at him. He feigned sleep, but was unable to resist the urge to crack open his eyes just a fraction. That was his first glimpse at Beth Greene.

Her legs kicking frantically while the shell of her mother tried to tear her flesh.

Her malnourished knees knocking together the winter before they found the prison.

The time that he had raided a clothes store and she found shorts two sizes too big. It had started to warm up again, and she said something about wanting to feel the sun on her, or some shit like that. She cinched up the waistband with some borrowed twine and took Judith outside to play. They lay in the grass, Judith on her chest, while the sunlight made her bare legs glow. He had seen her through layers of fence while he cleared out another piece of the perimeter for the day. It took a walker reaching out to grab the scruff of his shirt to get him to tear his eyes away.

Her pale legs… wrapped around him… 

Maybe if he hitched her up around his waist and got her to wrap her mesmerizing legs around him, there wouldn’t be much of a height difference.

He caught himself then. A fucking seat adjustment in a car was putting damning thoughts in his head. The apocalypse was driving him up a fucking wall. 

And he had as good as promised her that he’d reprimand her later for this solo-run incident. Reprimands required eye contact. Not eye-to-leg contact. 

He took the keys out of the ignition and resisted the urge to drive the car as far away as possible.


End file.
